World Music Labels Receive WOMEX & WMCE Awards

This year, WOMEX, together with its partners at the World Music Charts Europe have decided to award labels instead of chart-topping world music CDs. “In these challenging times for music producers, we thought it right to highlight those labels with the greatest chart success, making them the deserved center of attention,” said a WOMEX press release.

The WOMEX representatives explain how the selection is made: “Since we are awarding chart success in creative production, we are counting the work of A&R teams from individual companies. Two or more labels in the same overall company under one direction are counted together. Different, autonomous A&R teams from different company locations are counted separately. In this way, Crammed Discs and their sub-label Ziriguiboom are counted as one. The World Music Network (The Rough Guides) and Riverboat are counted as one, since all releases are created by the same team. But Virgin, Real World and EMI, though the same overall parent or marketing company, are counted separately, since they function as different companies with different A&R teams.”

The period covers the time since the last WOMEX, 10/2005 until 9/2006.

The WOMEX & World Music Charts Europe framed Award goes to each of the top three world music labels. They are: